The present invention relates to a method of changing strip material on a manufacturing machine.
The present invention may be employed to advantage on packing machines in general and, in particular, to cigarette packing machines, to which the following description refers without, however, departing from the wider scope of the present invention.
For special purposes, such as the formation of collars or internal reinforcing elements of flip-top packs, cigarette packing machines are known to employ relatively rigid strip material, normally fed off a reel.
When one reel runs out, the machine is usually stopped for loading a new reel, the leading end of the new strip being connected manually by the operator to the trailing end of the old one.
Such an operation obviously involves considerable down-time and constant supervision of the machine by the operator.